The AMA Handbook of Project Management

Paul C. Dinsmore,Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin

• Publisher: AMACOM
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780814438671
• Edition: 5
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Project Management
• Index: Business

This book is an essential resource that presents a state-of-the-art theory and process of project management.

Packed with essays and insights from the field's top professionals,?this authoritative guide?is the resource professionals and students rely on for its practical guidance and big picture overview of the entire field: scheduling and budgeting, engaging stakeholders, measuring performance, managing multiple projects, resolving conflicts, using agile practices, and more.

Whether you need advice keeping projects on track or help preparing for certification, this new edition explains every principle, process, and development. Revised to reflect the latest changes to A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge?(PMBOK®),?the fifth edition includes new information on how to:

• Close the strategy-implementation gap
• Tap the power of digital transformation
• Navigate M&A environments
• Revise your methods for nonprofit settings
• Keep pace with your evolving role

Filled with models, case studies, and in-depth solutions, The AMA Handbook of Project Management helps you master the discipline, overcome obstacles, and fast track your projects and career.

SECTION ONE

The Project Management Body of Knowledge—Comprehension and Practice

Introduction

Foundational Project Management Knowledge

Serious students and practitioners of project management are already familiar with the PMBOK® Guide—the professional standard published by the Project Management Institute (PMI). This document provides the foundation for the study and practice of project management. Yet project management knowledge and practices evolve over the years, and as they evolve, the standard must be updated to reflect current practice—and to help mold the future of the discipline.

With the sixth edition update, PMI has sought to provide increased clarity on processes and inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs. Changes to the sixth edition include greater focus on agile and adaptive methodologies, benefits management, and knowledge management. Like most standards, it is both detailed and high level. That is to say, knowledge areas and process groups in the PMBOK® Guide are described in as much detail as possible when creating a document that, by definition, must apply to all projects in all fields of endeavor. But the Guide, while of tremendous value in describing the parameters of the field, was never intended as a step-by-step manual for running a project. Instead, it functions more as an ideal vision of project management.

Chapter 1 offers an overview of project management, its history and working parts. Chapters 2 to 18 are designed to help you take the fundamentals of project management one step further into the sunlight. Respected expert practitioners discuss the processes and knowledge areas that, rather than reiterating what you can read in the PMBOK® Guide, will help you to apply the standards and principles of the profession.

Chapter 2 provides an overview of the bodies of knowledge about project management that have been amassed by various professional societies worldwide, while Chapter 3 discusses the changes that have been made to the PMI standard with the release of the new sixth edition. Chapters 4 to 8 discuss the processes that make up project management: initiating, planning, monitoring and controlling, and closing each receive a full chapter of coverage. Chapters 9 to 18 cover the ten knowledge areas accepted as the basis of project management.

Finally, all chapters in this section have been reviewed either by the author or by another knowledgeable party for compliance with the newest version of the PMI standard, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, sixth edition. For professionals in search of formal certification through PMI, additional qualifications, readings, and studies are required, as outlined in PMI’s site, www.pmi.org.

1

What Is Project Management?

Project Management Concepts and Methodologies

Joan Knutson, PMP

Francis M. Webster Jr., PhD

What do Wall Street and Main Street have in common? Both measure success relative to speed, quality, and teamwork. Growing behemoths and smaller emerging concerns tout project management as a vehicle to success. They use project management to plan and manage enterprise initiatives that generate revenue or contain costs. Those who compete to sell products or services use project management to differentiate themselves by creating a product of higher quality than that of their competitors and getting it to market sooner.

Project management is recognized as a necessary discipline within corporations and governmental agencies. The planning, organizing, and tracking of projects are recognized as core competencies by for-profit and nonprofit organizations of any size.

Projects are mini-enterprises, and each project is a crucial microcosm of any business or organization. You may not be an entrepreneur, but as a project manager you are an “intrapreneur.” Think about it: projects consume money and create benefits. Consider the percentage of your organization’s dollars that are invested in projects, and the amount of your organization’s bottom line generated through projects.

PROJECTS: THE WORK

Pharmaceuticals, aerospace, construction, and information technology are industries that operate on a project basis, and all are notable for developments that have changed the way we live and work. But not all projects are of such magnitude. A community fundraising or political campaign, the development of a new product, creating an advertising program, and training the sales and support staff to service a product effectively are also projects. Indeed, it is probable that most executives spend more of their time planning and monitoring changes in their organizations—that is, projects—than they do in maintaining the status quo.

All of these descriptions focus on a few key notions. Projects involve change—the creation of something new or different—and they have a beginning and an ending. Indeed, these are the characteristics of a project that are embodied in the definition of project found in A Guide to the Project Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide, sixth edition) published by the Project Management Institute (PMI): A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.¹ This definition, although useful to project managers, may not be sufficient to distinguish projects from other undertakings. Understanding some of the characteristics of projects and comparing projects to other types of undertakings may give a clearer perspective.

Some Characteristics of Projects

• Projects are unique undertakings that result in a single unit of output. The installation of an entertainment center by a homeowner, with the help of a few friends, is a project. The objective is to complete the installation and enjoy the product of the effort. It is a unique undertaking because the homeowner is not likely to repeat this process frequently.

• Projects are composed of interdependent activities. Projects are made up of activities. Consistent with the definition of a project, an activity has a beginning and an end. Activities are interrelated in one of three possible ways. In some situations, one activity must be completed before another can begin. Generally, these mandatory relationships are difficult to violate, or to do so just does not make sense. The relationship of other activities is not as obvious or as restrictive. These more discretionary interdependencies are based on the preferences of the people developing the plan. Some activities are dependent on some external event, such as receiving the materials from the vendor. In any of these three instances, mandatory, discretionary, or external, activities have a relationship one to another.

• Projects create a quality deliverable. Each project creates its own deliverable(s), which must meet standards of performance criteria. That is, each deliverable from every project must be quality controlled. If the deliverable does not meet its quantifiable quality criteria, that project cannot be considered complete.

• Projects involve multiple resources, both human and nonhuman, which require close coordination. Generally there are a variety of resources, each with its own unique technologies, skills, and traits. This aspect, in human resources, leads to an inherent characteristic of projects: conflict. There is conflict among resources as to their concepts, approaches, theories, techniques, and so on. In addition, there is conflict for resources as to quantity, timing, and specific assignments. Thus, a project manager must be skilled in managing such conflicts.

• Projects are not synonymous with the products of the project. For some people, the word project refers to the planning and controlling of the effort. For others, it means the unique activities required to create the product of the project. This is not a trivial distinction, as both entities have characteristics specific to themselves. The names of some of these characteristics apply to both....